National Liberation Army of Iran

The National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA) is the armed wing of the People's Mujahedin of Iran party in Iran. Founded in 1971, the NLA was active from 1971 to 1977 and from 1979 to the present, having brigade strength at its peak. The NLA was involved with guerrilla warfare against the Shahist regime during the 1970s, engaging in terrorist attacks; in 1971, it bombed the Jordanian embassy in Tehran in response to Black September. The NLA had an alliance with the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas, Fatah, and the Palestine Liberation Organization during the 1970s, allying with several Islamic socialist groups during its struggle against imperialism. The NLA would assist Ayatollah Khomeini in seizing power during the Iranian Revolution, but it turned against the Iranian government in June 1981 in response to a government crackdown on leftist groups in the country. The NLA assassinated Iranian politicians Mohammad-Ali Rajai, Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, and Mohammad Beheshti in the Hafte Tir bombing and the Hashteh-Shahrivar bombing in 1981, and Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist government in Iraq allowed for the NLA to set up bases in his country during the Iran-Iraq War. In 1988, the 7,000-strong NLA was crushed by the Iranian Artesh regulars during Operation Mersad at the end of the war, and the NLA resorted to terrorism. Allied with Iraq (until 2003) and Iran's enemies of Israel and Saudi Arabia, the NLA assassinated Iranian general Ali Sayad Shirazi on 10 April 1999 and killed several Iranian nuclear scientists and educators after revealing the program's existence to Israel in 2002. By 2012, the NLA was no longer labelled a terrorist group by the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, or Canada.